Poor drainage undoes repairs in Middletown homes

After Sandy, Middletown homes ruined again

Feb. 11, 2013

Robert Balog, of Hamilton Avenue, in the Leonardo section of Middletown, stands in the kitchen of his home, which has been twice damaged due to a blocked drainage pipe on Earle property. / MARY FRANK/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

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MIDDLETOWN — The stain on a pantry door marks the height of the water that inundated Kathleen Balog’s kitchen, but it wasn’t left by superstorm Sandy.

Renovations from the Oct. 29 storm were nearly complete when her home flooded again, days after Christmas – this time the result of heavy rains combined with a drainage system that years earlier had been identified as needing repairs.

“We’re at our wits’ end,” said Balog, who has been living with her husband, Bob, for more than 30 years in their Hamilton Avenue home in the Leonardo section of Middletown. “Everything we put in was washed out again.”

The township and Monmouth County officials believe they know what the problem is and are essentially ready to make those repairs.

But the project that might have prevented the December flooding in not only Balog’s but also other neighbors’ homes had been held up – first by an equipment fire, and now by red tape at the federal level.

What’s adding to neighbors’ frustration is that they brought the drainage problems to the attention of officials nearly five years ago, shortly after heavy rains left as much as 6 inches of water in their homes and 2 feet of water in their yards.

“As we all know, the hurricane season will be upon us shortly. Time is of the essence,” said the July 15, 2008, letter, which was signed by the owners of six impacted homes.

But years later, homes still are being flooded. And some neighbors are putting the costly repairs on hold until they are sure they won’t be repeating the work months later.

“It’s silly to do this again if it isn’t corrected,” Kathleen Balog said.

Stormwater from the neighborhood drains into a catch basin, which flows into a pipe beneath Naval Weapons Station Earle and out to the marshes of Ware Creek and eventually Raritan Bay.

Engineers say the problem isn’t the 36-inch drainage pipe beneath the base, but rather the trenches dug decades ago into the marshes to help move the stormwater to the bay.

Over the years, those trenches have filled with silt, slowing drainage in the neighborhood, Middletown Public Works Director and Engineer Ted Maloney said.

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And the problem only got worse after Sandy’s tidal waves carried more dirt and debris into the drainage outfall.

The fix seems simple enough. Remove the silt and debris to allow the rain water to drain again.

Not so fast.

The Monmouth County Mosquito Extermination Commission has a 10-year countywide permit with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to do maintenance, dredging and cleaning in the existing tidal ditches in the name of mosquito control, said Vicki Thompson, assistant superintendent with the commission.

But the mosquito commission also has to submit each project it would like to complete under the permit to the Army Corps for approval. Other state and federal agencies have to sign off on the individual projects before the Army Corps grants approval.

That was done, and the project to clean out the silt went into the queue for the commission’s crew of five to tackle. The permit also prevents work from being done in the marshes from April 1 to Aug. 31 because of bird and fish migration.

But before the ditch could be cleaned, one of the pieces of equipment the commission owns to do the work caught fire in 2011, Thompson said.

And the backup equipment broke.

Then the federal permit expired.

The mosquito commission had in the works an application for a new 10-year permit, which was issued last July, Thompson said. But what the Army Corps rejected was a request from the commission to carry over all the previously approved projects onto the new permit, she said.

That forced the commission to submit the paperwork once again for all of the specific drainage maintenance and repair projects. Those requests are still pending.

In the meantime, Sandy hit. That put 9 inches of water into the Balogs’ home.

The Balogs had completed about $7,000 in repairs, financed by money the couple received from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, when the Dec. 27 storm left 6 inches of water in their home.

The cost of those repairs will come from their own pockets. So the Balogs are living with their furniture hoisted off the ground, bare concrete instead of the hardwood flooring they once had, and drywall missing from the bottom foot of their exterior walls.

Neighbor Boris Zherdin estimated he had a foot of water in his Center Avenue home. He continued with repairs, but knows they might be short-lived.

“I expect that the next big rain it will be flooded again,” he said.

Thompson said her office has already started working with Earle to get the security clearance needed to access the waterway from the naval base so work can start as soon as the Army Corps approves the project.